Sunrate, a global payments and treasury management platform for travel businesses, has been recognised for its AI-driven approach to financial operations. The company took home the AI Initiative of the Year – Singapore category at the Travel Daily Media Travel Trade Excellence Awards 2026 – Asia for Sunrate.AI, the agentic intelligence layer built into its platform.
The award highlights how Sunrate.AI is addressing a persistent pain point for travel finance teams: the high volume of supplier payments, multi-currency transactions, and strict settlement deadlines that characterise the industry. By blending automation with human oversight, the system allows AI agents to validate information, evaluate options, and execute tasks within client-defined approval controls.
How Sunrate.AI streamlines travel payments
Travel companies—from online travel agencies (OTAs) to travel management companies (TMCs)—routinely process large numbers of payments to suppliers across the globe. Manual processes for beneficiary checks, payment method selection, reconciliation, and compliance monitoring can introduce complexity and delays. Sunrate.AI aims to reduce that burden through a suite of specialised agents.
The platform includes a Payment Agent that validates beneficiaries, suggests appropriate payment channels, and supports bank transfers or virtual card payments—all within the client's approval framework. An FX Agent identifies potential funding gaps before settlement and recommends currency conversions, helping to mitigate foreign exchange risk.
Compliance is another critical area. The Compliance Agent supports know-your-customer (KYC) and know-your-business (KYB) checks, sanctions and watchlist screening, adverse media reviews, and risk assessment. The Onboarding Agent guides customers through registration and KYB/KYC preparation, cross-checks submitted information against uploaded documents, and supports identity verification. A Chat Agent then assists users contextually through natural-language queries.
Sunrate.AI is built on Sunrate's existing payment infrastructure, which includes virtual card capabilities as a principal member of Mastercard. APIs can generate virtual cards for single bookings, each linked to a specific supplier, amount, validity period, and booking reference. This model supports automated reconciliation, reduces buyers' exposure to PCI DSS requirements, and can help cut FX costs through supplier-currency cards.
One of the key differentiators is that the agents are natively integrated into Sunrate's platform. OTAs and TMCs already using Sunrate can adopt them without a separate integration. Crucially, clients retain control over financial decisions, with human authorisation remaining a mandatory step in the payment workflow.
Since deploying its AI agents, Sunrate has reported measurable improvements across compliance, onboarding, and customer support. The system has streamlined compliance reviews, reduced the number of manual checks for low-risk cases, and shortened case preparation time. Onboarding features have also cut the need for guidance and unnecessary document re-submissions, while fostering better engagement post-onboarding.
The Travel Daily Media Travel Trade Excellence Awards – Asia is a premier awards programme in the Asia Pacific region, honouring excellence across hotels, airlines, airports, cruise lines, tour operators, travel agencies, booking platforms, and travel technology. Sunrate's win in the AI category underscores the growing importance of intelligent automation in travel finance.
For travel businesses looking to modernise their financial workflows, Sunrate.AI offers a practical path to reducing manual effort while maintaining strict control over money movement. As the industry continues to digitise, such agentic solutions are likely to become a standard tool for finance teams.
Related coverage: Asia's travel innovators honoured at the same awards, and SympleHost's PMS win highlights the breadth of technology recognition.
